


In the Shadow of the Dolby Theater

by Showeranon



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session, Bromance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-12
Updated: 2012-09-12
Packaged: 2017-11-14 02:52:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/510542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Showeranon/pseuds/Showeranon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Egbert is a successful young composer who's just made it big... but why isn't he celebrating?</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Shadow of the Dolby Theater

Your name is John Egbert and you have just won an Oscar. You sit in a small Italian restaurant evocative of a classic Billy Joel tune, twisting a fork into a mound of pasta and meat sauce. To the right of your plate sits a high ball glass of Cherry Coke, still audibly bubbling. A cigarette burns in your left hand and, in spite of smoking bans, three more are snuffed out on the counter near your plate. Your eyes carry heavy bags as they examine each little bit of your meal, and your forehead is just slightly damp. Outside, cars pass, and while you’d usually occupy yourself with identifying the make and model of each passing auto, your mind is in other places tonight. All your hard work has paid off in what is essentially the penultimate reward in your field, score composition, but you can’t help but feel a bit… off.

You gripped your armrests when they announced your category, you screamed and jumped when they called your name. You posed for nearly an hour for photos and interviews with Jake, who you had had the pleasure of working with on almost every film for the past few years of your respective careers. But when your entourage finally made its way to your limo, you told everyone to go on, hailed a cab, and had the driver drop you off at Cacciatore’s.

You stepped in and undid your bowtie just as the last two employees were about to close up shop, but with proper incentive they were convinced to seat and serve you before they locked up and went home to an early Christmas. You ran your fingers through your spiky, almost matted black hair that you hadn’t even attempted to style for the evening as you waited for your food. You undid another button on your tuxedo. When the food came, you grinned and ate with gusto. The thought of the after party you were missing was… nice, but didn’t really faze you. You didn’t need a celebration; you needed _dinner_.

You don’t hear the door open over the clamor of the cooks shouting in the kitchen. You barely even notice when the seat next to you is pulled out and occupied. Or maybe you just didn’t want to notice.

“Okay, challenge time.” The occupant says as he drums his fingers on the counter. You take a sip of your Cherry Coke.

“Shoot, Dave.”

“List five good reasons why you’re skipping out on a party thrown in your honor, especially when I spent hours slaving over a hot Launchpad putting together the perfect setlist for just such an occasion.” You try to pull out a full laugh, but it’s mostly a chuckle punctuated by a drag from your cigarette.

“Well, considering Owen Wilson was presenting for part of the evening I already filled my quota of pompous blonde douchebags blowing hot air and jerking off all over the stage.” Dave chuckles.

“Ha ha, go fuck yourself,” he says with dry emphasis and produces a stainless steel flask from his coat pocket, “Look, if you’re going to drink, do it right.” You take Dave’s flask and turn it over, admiring the custom engraving.

“Vodka?”

“No, dumbass, those are my initials.”

“Wow, that’s totally the answer that I was looking for!”

“It’s gin,” Dave grabs the flask from your hands and arrests your Coke, filling up where the soda was gone with crucial libations, “Just some cheap shit, though. See, _I’m_ not the rich asshole who just won an Oscar.” This pulls another smile to your face as your sip the newly mixed drink.

“You know, the best goddamn audio engineer in Los Angeles should be able to afford more, uh, prestigious booze. Or at the very least _deserves_ to afford it.”

“Egbert, that’s sweet. You think that any exec gives two shits about me when I’m not the one with my name on the ticket as the jackass who’s running the show. See, I’m just one tiny dingy adrift on a massive sea of dicks,” Dave takes a swig from his flask. You’re almost sure you see an eye twitch underneath his sunglasses, “Sure, one of those dicks may swim up to my boat every now and then because I fuckin’ beer batter my hooks with the good shit, but alas, I can never hope to get a decent parking spot when I come in to port to check out the newest attraction. Lo and behold, it’s the studio exec’s mom in her debut with _Ripley’s Believe it or Not!_ She’s showcasing her status as the world record holder for the woman with the largest penis and I tell ya, John, I want front row seats.” Dave stops. You know he’s blinking underneath his shades. He gives his head a concise shake, “Fuck, I forgot the point I was making? Oh yeah, no one gives a shit about my job because I just do mixing and mastering.”

“And I _just_ write and conduct.”

You like to think that you would have just cheered Dave up, but you know he wasn’t actually upset about anything. A mouthful of pasta, a mouthful of gin, a drag from your cigarette.

“What the hell are you doing here anyway if this party is so off the hook?”

“As pointed out in my contract as the best goddamn bro you ever did see, I’m obviously here to retrieve the guest of honor,” Dave is certain to add just the right amount of mocking, dramatic silence, “That’s you, by the way. I’m here to grab you.”

“Yeah, because I totally guessed that you were here for Taddeo,” you gesture towards the kitchen door, radio audible through the aluminum, “You know, ‘cause you two go _waaaay_ back.”

“Well someone’s got to be the man of the hour. In this case I’ll deviate from my traditional habits of picking up hairy Italian dudes and go ahead and say that you’re gonna come with me. A party for John without John actually being there kind of fuckin’ sucks, na’mean?” You inwardly cringe and are almost certain that he just used that word to get under your skin, but give him a gesture of concession with your fork.

“And it’s your apartment anyway,” Dave says, “We’d feel weird being at your place without you actually letting us in.” You let out a hearty, albeit sarcastic laugh at the thought.

“Oh, now I know that that’s bullshit. I don’t even…” You trail off as you pat the breasts of your suit jacket, your eyes squinting beneath your square frames, “Which one of you fuckers lifted my keys?”

“Probably Rose, might have been _Dirk_ ,” you smirk at the mocking emphasis of his brother’s name, “Could’ve been Jake, but Karkat had ‘em when we actually got to the door,” Dave takes another swig and points at you, “Now if you’re breaking anyone’s heart tonight, it’s his. He had this awesome spread set up for you and everything; I think the bastard even baked you a cake!”

“Heh, yeah, that’s Karkat. Shit, why’s Jake still hanging around with us meager peons? He won _two_ Oscars tonight. We should be at _his_ party.”

“Oh you know that he loves the piss out of you. And you know better than anyone that he thanks you for, like, half his success.” You exhale, stirring the high ball with a thin red straw.

“Yeah, I guess he does.” You ogle your plate and Dave ogles right back. He snorts.

“Seriously, why the hell do you seem so down on yourself? You just won an Academy Award. You know, the most prestigious award in the film industry?”

“I think I’m up for a Grammy this year, too.” You gaze out the window, lost in thought, and puff your cigarette. Dave throws his hands up. You notice the corners of his ever stoic mouth actually curling into a curt smile for a moment.

“Well that’s it. Everybody go home. John Egbert has won music.”

“That’ll be the day.” You slide out of your chair and down the last of your Gin and Coke, making your way to the door with Dave following in your wake. You call out to the cooks, but you’re pretty sure they don’t hear you. Outside, you take a short pace, Dave doing his best to match yours with an even stride.

“You know, people who don’t have Down syndrome would be celebrating right now. Shit, I didn’t even _win_ anything and I’m celebrating harder than you are.” You gaze up at the sky, dimmed by light pollution. The streetlights reflect off of both your and Dave’s glasses, a slight distraction when trying to look him in the eye.

“Beautiful night, isn’t it?” You’re almost sure you can see a star.

“Don’t get coy with me, Egbert.”

“Haven’t the foggiest what you’re on about, Dave.” You say as Dave cuts in front of you and crosses his arms.

“Just riddle me this. Why is the biggest night of your career not actually registering to you?” You playfully push past him.

“No, the biggest night of my career was when I got picked to compose for _The Emerald Terror_. This is just… I dunno, kinda passé, I guess?”

“Winning an Oscar is passé?”

“Well, okay not really. Yeah, this is great. It’s as good as sex!” You say, throwing your arms up in accompaniment. Dave nods, convinced that you two are finally on the same page, “But it’s because it’s as good as sex that it’s not a big deal!”

“I ain’t following.”

“Okay, do you remember Barbra?”

“Babs? Your old girlfriend? Sure.”

“Well, way back when I felt pretty old fashioned, didn’t wanna rush anything, right? We’d make out and stuff, and we’d talk dirty even though I was never really good at that, but when we finally… You know, lost it to each other, it was weird.”

“Oh God, Rose is going to eat this up like that fat bitch loves caramel.” You roll your eyes.

“Anyway, I expected that when I lost my virginity I would suddenly feel, like, older somehow. Or closer to Barbra.”

“Here it comes.” Dave punctuates his comment with a snicker.

“But I didn’t. I was lying there on my bed, holding her and staring up at the ceiling, and that’s all I wanted to do! Just stare. I didn’t feel older, I didn’t feel closer. Sex was just that: Sex. Nothing special. The only thing special about the damn thing was the fact that there was so much mystique built up around it that even as a nineteen year old I thought that it would be some life-changing, affirming event that was vital for everyone to consider themselves, you know, a man or some shit.” Dave looks around, glancing down an alleyway and across the street. He leans in and lowers his sunglasses.

“You lost your virginity when you were nineteen?” You anticipated that response in its entirety.

“Go fuck yourself.”

“No, I get it. Like, winning an Oscar is great, and you’re fucking amazing for doing it when you’re twenty-seven. Nicolas fucking Cage won his first Oscar when he was thirty-two, and even I liked _Leaving Las Vegas_ , but it just wasn’t what-“

“Wasn’t what I thought it would be, yeah.” You take a few steps and tug at the roots of your hair, “And I can’t help but think that I should be feeling more, you know, exuberant about all this? It’s ridiculous. Give me a three month deadline for a goddamn symphony and I’m golden, but give me some time alone with my own conscience and I go nuts.” Dave cocks an eyebrow and spins on heel. You choose not to patronize him as he circles you, instead resigning yourself to hanging your head in an overdramatic fashion. Together, your movements look like something you would see in a cartoon.

“Know what I think?”

“What do you think, Dave?”

“I think that you just need to chill the fuck out right now.” You inhale from your dying cigarette and blow. You push your glasses up with thumb and forefinger and pinch the bridge of your nose.

“You’re right about that. Know what else you’re right about? That it’s amazing that I won my first Oscar when I’m twenty-seven. You know that I’ve only done three other full length scores, only one of those three being for an actual A-List movie?”

“Bragging isn’t helping me realize your predicament.”

“I’m at the beginning of my career, Dave. The beginning of my career and I’m already at the top of my field.” You pause for another drag. The tobacco has burned almost all the way down to the filter at this point. You take a few paces, your legs feeling heavy, “From the moment that I twiddled out Showtime on my piano back home when I was, what, twelve? Like, thirteen? I had always, _always_ known somewhere that I would be composing for the rest of my life. And somewhere I always hoped that winning an Oscar would be where my life would take me. But I never imagined that it would be this soon,” You stop for one last drag from your cigarette, flicking the butt to the concrete near your feet, “I wanted an Oscar to represent my magnum opus. I need it to be more than just another fucking accolade. If I wanted praise for my music, I’d have stayed back at college,” You grind the toe of your wingtip over the smoldering butt, snuffing it, “I wanted it to be closure,” You direct your gaze back to Dave’s, “Now where do I go?”

The two of you stand in silence for a moment. Dave inspects his shoelaces for a preposterous amount of time before rubbing his five-o-clock shadow pensively.

“You go to your party.”

“Dave-“

“No, Egbert, you shut your chiseled trap and listen to me for one goddamn second. You go to this party of yours and you stop thinking about this crap. You’ve always been at your best when you’re not overthinking things, or hell, even thinking at all,” Dave stops and tries to come up with a word, but stumbles and turns his head. You cock an eyebrow in perplexity. Dave groans and turns back to you, “Look, for the entire time that I’ve known you, you’ve always had this almost retarded intuition. Like, you don’t give two shits about what nobody else thinks, you barely ever plan ahead and while I try my fucking best to make sure you don’t end up dead after trying some ridiculous get-rich-quick scheme or inexplicably trusting the word of some jackass in Armani that you just met like the hand of fucking God, most of the time the way you just bash through things like some in-fucking-scrutable claw hammer works for you,” At this point Dave is throwing his arms up just as frequently as he draws breath, “ I’ll be honest, it kind of makes me jealous sometimes. But it works for you. You’re not John when you’re overthinking this shit. John I know would revel in his success and straight up act like nothing happened in, like, a week, because he’s too busy working on his next piece. John Egbert rides the fucking breeze and there ain’t no one that’s gonna stop him from doing whatever the hell he wants, even if what he wants to do is win an Oscar every year from this point until he dies.”

“Dave.”

“You want to know where you go next? You go to your fucking party,” You watch as he produces a slender phone from the other side of his jacket and starts dialing the number for what you presume to be a cab. He looks up at you, “Well?” You’re slightly dumbfounded at Dave’s rant. Under normal circumstances you probably would have tried your best to sustain an argument. You stand still, trying to find a way to get angry, but all you can do right now is grin.

“Yeah, sure. Let’s kick it harder than Ad-Rock and Steven fucking Tyler.” Dave nods in response and cracks a wry grin, if only for a moment. He turns on heel and starts off down the block towards a corner. You reach in to your jacket and retrieve a carton of cigarettes and lighter. You slide one out, light it, and puff. You blow smoke from your nose and turn your head back up to the sky.

“It _is_ a beautiful night.”

You follow Dave to the end of the block where you wait for the cab, trading quips and laughing. When the cab comes, you put your cigarette down on a bus bench, letting it burn in the light of the streetlamp as you vanish down the road.

**Author's Note:**

> I was writing this for an entirely different purpose before I realized that I wanted to repurpose it into a fanfic. I love bromance, I love having John and Dave interact with each other. And for some reason I can see John being a composer or at the very least *some* kind of musician when he grows up. 
> 
> This represents me getting out of my little writing rut/hiatus, so I may be a bit rusty on a craft level. Bear with me on any mistakes I may have made, but feel free to point 'em out!


End file.
